e wished
to know. After a moment's silence, he shuddered as though awaking
from a dream, and pulling out his watch, said:

"Par le Dieu! How I chat on, while time flies!"

"And Guespin is in prison," remarked the doctor.

"We will have him out," answered the detective, "if, indeed, he is
innocent; for this time I have mastered the mystery, my romance,
if you wish, and without any gap. There is, however, one fact of
the utmost importance, that I by myself cannot explain."

"What?" asked M. Plantat.

"Is it possible that Monsieur de Tremorel had a very great interest
in finding something--a deed, a letter, a paper of some sort
--something of a small size, secreted in his own house?"

"Yes--that is possible," returned the justice of the peace.

"But I must know for certain."

M. Plantat reflected a moment.

"Well then," he went on, "I am sure, perfectly sure, that if Madame
de Tremorel had died suddenly, the count would have ransacked the
house to find a certain paper, which he knew to be in his wife's
possession, and which I myself have had in my hands."

"Then," said M. Lecoq, "there's the drama complete. On reaching
Valfeuillu, I, like you, was struck with the frightful disorder of
the rooms. Like you, I thought at first that this disorder was the
result of design. I was wrong; a more careful scrutiny has
convinced me of it. The assassin, it is true, threw everything
into disorder, broke the furniture, hacked the chairs in order to
make us think that some furious villains had been there. But amid
these acts of premeditated violence I have followed up the
involuntary traces of an exact, minute, and I may say patient search.
Everything seemed turned topsy-turvy by chance; articles were broken
open with the hatchet, which might have been opened with the hands;
drawers had been forced which were not shut, and the keys of which
were in the locks. Was this folly? No. For really no corner or
crevice where a letter might be hid has been neglected. The table
and bureau-drawers had been thrown here and there, but the narrow
spaces between the drawers had been examined--I saw proofs of it,
for I found the imprints of fingers on the dust which lay in these
spaces. The books had been thrown pell-mell upon the floor, but
every one of them had been handled, and some of them with such
violence that the bindings were torn off. We found the
mantel-shelves in their places, but every one had been lifted up.
The chairs were no